God From the Machine
by Paths Crossing
Summary: Companion to 'Crazy Creatures of Mossflower.' Having left the theater to live a normal life, the Abbey dwellers are thrown back into a world of insanity when a strange new menance threatens to burst into their peaceful lives. Darker than Crazy Creatures.
1. The Beginning of the End

_A/N: Well, will you look at that. I'm not dead! Haha, I was bored one day and Muse has been bugging me ever since I found an old drawing I did of her, so I'm back, and the show that never actually goes on will continue to well… go on. In a way. Sense. Thingamajiga._

_**OH AND READ THIS CAUSE I'M NOT TELLING YOU IN THE ACTUAL STORY – THE POV FROM WHICH THIS IS NARRATED HAS CHANGED AGAIN. IT'S NOW GEN-U-INE THIRD PERSON OMNESCIENT, PEOPLES. But Muse is still the main-ish character.**_

**Also, I highly recommend you read 'Crazy Creatures of Mossflower' first if you want to understand this fic. The writing in CCOM isn't really good, and I'm not that proud of it, but you it would really help if you read it. :)**

_Welcome to Chapter Seven, my friends, better known as the beginning of the end._

"I. Am a bloody. Flickering. Humanoid-shaped. Light. Bloody flickering humanoid-shaped lights. Do not. Get the common cold."

At least, that's what Muse was telling herself, sitting alone on the stage of a sad-looking empty theater, flickering feet propped up on the dusty surface of the desk in front of her. The swivel chair in which she sat squeaked softly as she rocked it back and forth, tapping her fingers on the armrest impatiently and staring at a laptop screen. A pile of used and re-used tissues had built up around her, spilling out of the wire wastebasket perched precariously between the desk and a hole in the stage floor. As she watched, bored, a few of the tissues fell from the wastebasket into the hole.

Muse turned her face to the ceiling, yelling and pointing one flickering had up towards the sky, talking to someone who wasn't there. "This is all YOUR FAULT YOU KNOW! You stupid authoress, you bloody forgot I EXISTED! Criminal negligence, that's what this is! NEGLIGENCE!"

Muse's angry, shrieking voice resounded through the dark theater, bouncing back from the faded walls with their peeling paint and the torn upholstery of the chairs. The theater really was a sad place now. After a few weeks, even Bob had left to find someplace else to go. "Anywhere's better than hanging around this deserted place waiting for something to happen." He'd said.

"Heh. I should've gone with them, when they left…" Muse said to herself, tapping out a sentence on her laptop, snorting in frustration, and deleting it. She leaned forward to the desk, grabbed yet another tissue and blew her nose loudly. "Geezes, I'm a bloody MUSE and even I can't come up with any ideas to write life into THIS place. Lost cause."

"I wouldn't be so sure of that, if I were you."

Muse jumped, knocking the tissues off the desk in her haste to get her feet down and sending her laptop crashing loudly to the wooden stage floor. She whipped around, the poor abused chair screaming in protest at the sudden motion. "YOU!" She yelled angrily, pointing one pale pulsating finger at the intruder.

"Me." Said the newcomer with a smirk. Unlike Muse, the newcomer didn't give off her own light, nor have a flickering insubstantial form. But there definitely was some similarity, if only in the atmosphere they both exuded. The newcomer was leaning casually against the wall behind the dust-laden, moth-eaten curtain, tossing an old black microphone up and down easily. Her skin and hair were unnaturally pale, both practically snow white. The eyes she turned on Muse were also pale, such a light blue as to be almost not a color. They were wide and had a distinct look of madness to them – maybe because of the bags underneath them, or dark ring that went around the lower lid. And though the intruder wasn't her own personal light source, she made up for it by wearing obscenely bright, neon, I-will-burn-your-retinas-out colors of green and orange mixed together. A bright green hoodie, neon orange jeans and green sneakers with orange laces, she resembled some kind of mutated, insane citrus fruit.

"What do YOU want, Lime?" Muse asked coldly.

"Me? Nothing. Just to not be here." The newcomer, Lime, said with a smirk, taking the microphone, weighting it, then chucking it as far as she could across the theater. She gave a little satisfied smile when it landed. "Ooh, row twenty, I'm improving."

"If you don't want to be here, than why ARE you here?" Muse asked, blowing her nose for what seemed like the millionth time.

"Because, Muse, our beloved authoress saw fit to send me to pay you a visit."

"Oh, how kind of her. I'm so very flattered." Muse's icy voice was literally dripping sarcasm.

Lime gave her another crooked grin, shoving her pale hands in her pockets and ambling across the stage. She stopped at the hole and looked down into it. "How exactly did this get here?" She asked, cocking her head to the side.

"I really don't know. You'd have to ask Aster."

Suddenly Lime perked up, clapping her hands together. "Oh, right! Aster! Now I remember!"

"Remember what." Again. Nose blowing. Stupid common cold.

Lime grinned a wide, Cheshire cat grin. "I'm here as a convenient plot device to deliver you a message. The show must go on!" She exclaimed, striking a dramatic pose and casting her hands to the sky.

Muse stared.

And stared.

And stared.

Lime's grin faltered and she lowered her hands. "Well?" She asked.

"Well what?"

"You're the muse for these situations. It's your job to get the show on."

"Tch!" Muse said, and swiveled away from Lime, facing the back wall of the stage. "That ship sailed a long time ago. Two or so YEARS, actually."

"But… but… but…" Lime stuttered, her cheerful demeanor taking a blow. What was wrong with Muse? Muse used to be so nice. "Two years is ages! C'mon, Muse, I know you! I bet you must have hundreds – thousands – of ideas cramped up in that glowy little head of yours!" Crossing the floor to the chair, Lime knocked her knuckles on the top of Muse's somewhat-there somewhat-not head none to gently.

"Ow! Lime, cut it out!" Muse yelled, swatting her hand away. "I don't care about that stupid little story anymore, okay? So leave me alone."

Lime backed off, looking hurt. "But Muse… You're a muse."

"Pssh! That's easy for YOU to say. YOU'RE the original fiction muse. YOU'VE been plenty busy. I'm just the fan fiction Muse."

"But… You helped me Muse. I wouldn't be a muse without you."

Muse blew her nose again and threw the used tissue over her shoulder. It fluttered to the ground at Lime's feet. "Yeah, well, you are. So I'm not needed anymore."

Lime thought for a moment, and then her smirk slowly returned. "Actually, Muse… you are."

"Oh really? Please, do tell."

Lime grinned wickedly. "Dear Paths still wants reviews and feedback. I can't provide them. YOU can."

For a while, Muse said nothing. Then, slowly, with one long creak her chair turned around. Her eyes- slightly brighter spots in her glowing face- locked with Lime's. "You're telling me… that Paths is still a reviewwhore?"

"Yup."

* * *

"ASTER!"

"The resounding clatter of pots and pans and the shrieking of an irritated squirrel maid rang through the kitchen of Redwall abbey.

"Uh… Hehehehehe?" Aster said with a sheepish grin, peeking out from beneath the tumbled-down bowls. Her face was streaked with dough, flour, and frosting – frosting which Milfoil had labored over for the better part of an hour that afternoon, preparing it for her cake. It had taken her ages to get it perfect.

And now, thanks to one stupid, bumbling mousemaid, that was ruined."

Milfoil sighed, wiping her paws off on a dishrag and helping Aster up. "Uh… sorry about that Millie… I couldn't resist, the frosting looked so good."

Milfoil sighed. "Yes, well, I guess it was only a matter of time before something went wrong. It's not every day I have to prepare the feature dessert for the Abbott's biggest feast this YEAR, because the REGULAR cook went and got sick so of COURSE with MY luck, it'd fall to ME…" She mumbled to herself, bustling around and cleaning up, taking the catastrophe in a stride and preparing to start all over again. It was hard to stay mad at Aster. And Milfoil knew Aster couldn't help it, it was in her nature to be an annoying klutz. In fact, Aster was the only one who'd really managed to learn nothing since they'd relocated from the studio to the Abbey, after Milfoil had finally given up on her show. They'd settled in well at the Abbey, even the vermin who'd worked the set had found someplace they fit in.

_'It's not like the ABBEY isn't different from what it should be.' _She thought to herself. _'There's people from ALL of the books here, all at the same time, and nobody thinks it's weird at all. I guess they wouldn't. The studio was weirder.'_

Really, the only difference at the Abbey was the lack of Muse, the authoress, and random things appearing from nowhere due to convenient holes in the space/time continuum. In fact, things had stopped turning up out of nowhere only a few weeks after they'd arrived. All the paperclips – which Aster had brought, for some strange reason – disappeared too. The only really weird thing left from the studio…

"FOUR PLUS FOUR EQUALS EIGHT!"

…was Bob, the amazing talking coffee bean.

"Yes, Bob, we KNOW already. Now please tell me the first ingredient I need for the frosting." Milfoil said with a sigh, setting down a bowl by where the little coffee bean lay atop an open cookbook, next to the recipe.

"Oh, uh… you need some butter."

"Thank you, Bob." Milfoil said.

Aster dragged a stool over and sat down, watching Milfoil cook. "Hey, did you know that Wakka tried to cut down one of the oldest apple trees in the orchard yesterday? It took both Martins, Matthias, AND Mattimeo to drag him off. He had a lumberjack relapse."

Milfoil snickered. "Oh, really? Where is he now?"

"They're keeping him locked in a solitary, interior, windowless room in the infirmary 'for his own safety', until the relapse passes."

"Well, I hope he's out by tomorrow. We wouldn't him to miss the feast."

"Yeah, where else would find someone psycho enough to declare war on Salamandastron because one of the hares ate the last piece of peach pie?" Aster snickered, munching on a candied chestnut.

"Yeah, I know, right?" Milfoil, laughed, turning to go get some sugar…

…only to find that there was some on the table, right in front of her.

Where there had previously been no sugar.

"Uhh, Aster? Did you see where that came from?"

"Huh? Where what…?" She turned around, and saw the sugar Milfoil was pointing at. "Whoa. That's weird…"

"Bob, did you…Bob?" Milfoil turned to ask the coffee bean if he knew (she couldn't really say seen, because Bob had no eyes, but somehow he always knew exactly what was going on just as if he had eyes, ears, and a nose.) where the sugar came from.

Only there was a problem.

The coffee bean wasn't there.

"Bob? BOB? Where'd you go? Bob?"

Milfoil was looking around frantically, but the coffee bean was nowhere to be seen. Aster, however, was frozen in shock, staring at the doorway. She tugged on Milfoil's sleeve.

"Uuh, Millie…"

"Aster, BOB'S GONE! HE'S GONE!"

"Millie…"

"Oh, no, what if he disappeared like the paper clips? He was ALIVE! It's not FAIR, they can't just take-"

"Millie…"

"WHAT? WHAT IS SO IMPORTANT THAT YOU DON'T CARE THAT BOB IS GOOONE?" The squirrelmaid screeched, rounding on Aster.

Aster just pointed to the door.

"Millie, we have a visitor."

Slowly, cautiously, afraid of what she might see, Milfoil turned around.

"I'm flattered you were so worried about me, Milfoil, but really, I'm fine!" Bob called from the doorway. "And wasn't it nice of her, she gave you the sugar you were looking for, after all this time…"

Bob was indeed fine. He was sitting in a hand – not a paw, a hand, a glowing, flickering hand – attached to a glowing, flickering figure leaning casually in the doorway.

"Oh, no…" Milfoil breathed.

"Heeeey, Millie!" Aren't you glad to see me?" Muse called cheerily, waving a flickering hand.

Milfoil moaned and dropped her face into her paws. "My life. It just got a whole lot weirder, didn't it?" She asked.

"Yup." Muse responded cheerfully. And when she looked up, Milfoil could've sworn that somehow, with her indistinct features, Muse was grinning a Cheshire smirk.

_A/N:And that's where it ends for now, folks! Please review, Kay? It'd make me veeeery happy. _

_Sorry for the lack of my former random humor, but I think this little fic is going to take a more serious turn in the future. I have an idea, something epic and possibly dark, possibly involving Mary Sues, brewing in my mind. There'll still be humor, it'll just be more grim and less random ZOMG!11!1!LOLOLOLOLOLOL humor._

_So, MUSE, LIME, MILFOIL, ASTER, AND BOB THE COFFEE BEAN ALL BELONG TO ME KAY? Everything else is the intellectual property of the amazing Brian Jaques._


	2. Preparations

_A/N: Chappie two… not much to say. Enjoy!_

_Oh, and please… maybe… just a little… review? Reviews are chicken soup to Muse's cold. And I like them too. So if you like it, are indifferent, HATE IT (you could suggest ways I could get better…), or want to scream at me for being a review whore (and I wouldn't blame you) just PLEASEEE?_

"So you're telling me… that after all this time… SHE'S BRINGING US BACK?"

Milfoil, Aster, and Muse all sat around the table in the kitchen, Milfoil staring incredulously at Muse, who she still couldn't believe had turned up again. And actually had a cold.

"I don't mind going back." Bob called cheerfully from where he was keeping watch by the door. Though how a coffee bean kept watch, nobody knew. Even Muse didn't know.

Milfoil rolled her eyes. "Bob, that's because you're a freaking TALKING BEAN."

"Well, yeah! And that means I can't talk to anyone here, because they'd freak out and stomp on me or something! At least in theater, I had people to talk to." Bob whined pitifully. What he said was true. After the theater emptied and everybeast returned to their respective homes in Mossflower and beyond, nobody except Milfoil, Aster, and Bob retained any memory of the terrible talk show-gone-kablooie. Though it was strange that even without their memory, nobeast questioned the fact that there were multiple generations living happily alongside each other.

"Bob, you had WAKKA." Milfoil said, exasperated, and dropped her face into her paws.

"TWO PLUS TWO IS FOUR!"

Milfoil sighed. Then she looked back up at Muse. "Look, I don't CARE what the authoress of this stupid thing wants. I. Am. NOT. Going. Back. That place was hell cleverly disguised as a theater, it was a pit of insanity, and what's worse, I WAS SUPPOSED TO BE IN CHARGE OF IT ALL. That is NOT happening again."

Muse leaned back in her chair and kicked her feet up on the table, smirking vaguely on her blurry flickering face. "Weeeell…" She said slowly, "Actually, I'm not sure she WANTS you to go back."

"Then what are you doing here, if you're not bringing us back?" Milfoil snapped at the flickering girl. "Not that we're not happy to see you or anything, but it kind of looked like you were crashing our lives."

Muse pulled a tissue out of her pocket and blew her nose loudly. (Even though Milfoil and Aster were never sure she actually needed to wear clothes, she insisted that she did and that they were quite comfortable.) "Well, you see, just this morning I had a visit from a friend of mine. She's a muse for our dear BELOVED," here her words oozed sarcasm, "Authoress just like me. From what she was saying, I gather that the authoress has finally matured a bit from her constant state of sugar-high insanity."

Milfoil and Aster stared.

"Uuh… what is that supposed to mean?" Aster asked.

Muse turned her head to look at the confused mousemaid. "It means, I think, that something more serious is going to happen. And it probably also means that you're not going to be a hyper airhead anymore either, Aster."

Aster glared at Muse, offended. She crossed her arms and sat back in her chair, mumbling about 'stuck up, know-it-all thinks she's so great. Well she can just go-"

"WELL," Muse said loudly, drowning out the last of Aster's sentence. "To keep this at a PG rating – at least for the present – I think you should shut your mouth, Aster."

The mousemaid glared and fell silent.

"Waitwaitwait…" Milfoil said, holding her paws up in front of her and confusion creeping into her tone. "You're saying something SERIOUS is going to happen? Are you KIDDING me? This is still being written by the same person, right?" She asked incredulously.

Muse shrugged. "As far as I can tell."

"But… but… but… Serious?"

Muse sighed in exasperation. "It HAS been a long time, Milfoil."

The odd group at the table fell silent and remained that way for a long time, staring at each other, or out the window, trying to figure out what on earth could possibly happen. For Milfoil and Aster, the thought of something interrupting the cheery life at Redwall abbey was almost inconceivable. In all the time they'd been there, there hadn't been a single vermin invasion, no cases of runaway dibbuns, no Mary-Sue invasions, nothing. Life was peaceful.

"Okay, let's say something serious IS going to happen. How would we know? What should we expect?" Milfoil asked, staring out the window at the clear blue sky before turning back to Muse. "You should know these things, right? You're the muse."

"Weeell, technically yes. But I don't ALWAYS come up with the ideas, and I haven't been filled in on this one quite yet." She said, choosing her words carefully so as not to upset the hair-trigger Milfoil. "And besides, I can't tell you anything once I am." She added under her breath.

"WHAT WAS THAT?" Milfoil screeched, eyes flashing angrily.

"Nothing, nothing, tra la la." Muse said, trying her best train her flickering face into a façade of innocence.

Milfoil glared at her.

* * *

Outside in the fresh air, sitting in comfortable corner on one of the battlements, Gonff, Prince of Mousethieves, was happily enjoying the spoils of his latest expedition – a slice of luscious pie, a hunk of cheese with almonds, and some delicious October Ale, still nice and cool. Columbine and Gonflet were off visiting a rather large family of voles that lived down by the river. Gonflet had made good friends with a few of their little ones, so the family of mice tried to visit as often as possible. Today, however, the creatures of the abbey had been busy setting up for Abbess Germaine's feast. (Although technically, there were several Abbotts and Abbesses alive, they all deferred to Abbess Germaine as she was the Abbey's founder. And over time, most of the Abbotts and Abbesses had passed on, or left to travel the countryside.)

And what a feast it would be! It had taken hours to set up the tables and decorations in the orchard that morning, and they still weren't finished even with the sun beginning to sink slowly towards the horizon. Gonff was merely taking what he saw as a well-deserved break.

Quietly humming to himself, he began slicing pieces off the cheese and popping them into his mouth, savoring the nutty flavor as it burst on his tongue.

"GONFF!" Somebeast called from below. "I CAN HEAR YOU UP THERE! GET YOUR LAZY TAIL DOWN HERE, WE STILL NEED ONE MORE TABLE!"

Sighing dejectedly, Gonff set aside the cheese and rose, stretching out his limbs. He glanced down at were Martin, warrior of Redwall and Gonff's best friend, stood, arms crossed, glaring jokingly up at Gonff.

"And if you've stolen anything from the kitchen again, I'm marching you right back there and leaving you to their mercy! They have enough trouble already with Friar Hugo sick without you pinching whatever you can get your hands on!"

Gonff pressed his paws over his heart, face taking on an injured expression. "What, _me_? Me, steal? You injure me, matey, you injure me deeply." As he said this, he picked up the cheese and tossed it down at Martin, who, with the unfailing reflexes of a warrior, caught it without flinching.

"'Sides, I was merely borrowing." Gonff said with a dismissive wave of his hand. "Borrowing with every intent of paying it back."

"Does this mean I should take you back to the kitchen, then, to pay back your debt? I understand they can use all the help they can get with some of Friar Hugo's signature dishes. Just think of it! They'd watch you so closely you wouldn't even have a _chance _to steal anything at all! Imagine the horror!"

Gonff's face took on a horrified expression. "Oh, no, have pity Martin, me dear old matey, dear old pal. You couldn't be so cruel, could you?"

"I will be if you don't get down here this second and help us move the table!"

Quick as a flash, Gonff gathered up the checkered napkin and large wooden cup he'd used for his snack, wrapping the cup in the napkin and stowing it away quickly in his knapsack. Hurrying towards the stairs, he cast a glance out and Mossflower wood…

…and stopped cold in his tracks.

'_Well, that's quite odd now, isn't it,'_ He thought to himself. Then he glanced over his shoulder at the sun _'It's still above the trees. There shouldn't be shadows like that yet…'_

For indeed, there was a shadow. A very large shadow where one should not be. For in the middle of the forest, perhaps a ten minute walk from the Abbey, a perfectly circular patch of trees was cast into darkness. It was deep black, the kind of shadow that only comes on a cloudy night when there is no moon, and sometimes not even then. Gonff stared at the shadow curiously.

And then it moved.

The mousethief jumped backwards, startled, with his heart thundering wildly in his throat. That wasn't right, that just wasn't _right_, shadows didn't move unless there were clouds to create them, and there wasn't a single cloud in the sky, not one. It shouldn't be moving. It _couldn't_ be moving.

"Gonff?" Martin called up, but the mousethief didn't respond. "Gonff, is something wrong?"

Gonff glanced down at his friend and then back out at the shadow .

But the shadow was gone. Mossflower wood was as green and beautiful as it had ever been, without a touch of darkness to disturb its splendor.

Slowly the mousthief shook his head. "Nope… No, nothing wrong here, matey. Just thought I saw something odd. Hah! Must've been a trick of the light."

"Well that's all well and good, but we've still got a table to move and decorations to set up, so get your thieving tail down here NOW!"

"I'm coming, I'm coming!" Gonff called exasperatedly. "You know what they say Martin – patience is a virtue!"

"Yes, one I'm about to lose! Hurry UP, already!"

* * *

Well.

"THAT didn't go quite the way I planned…" Muse mumbled to herself. She was back in the theater now, having left Milfoil and Aster once again to their own devices. Her job for now was complete. Now she just wanted to know what was going on.

"Lime?" She called. "Are you still here?"

Silence was the only answer from the empty theater. Sighing, Muse turned back to her desk. Sitting on her laptop – which someone had kindly picked up from the floor – was a note on crinkled notebook paper, written in bright green pen.

_Muse-_

_Sorry I couldn't stay, had to run and deal with some problems of my own. Downloaded a file onto your computer that'll tell you everything you need to know about what Paths has in mind. Oh, and if you click that little icon that looks like a mouse in the upper corner of your screen, you can watch what's going on in Mossflower._

_Cheers_

_Lime_

Muse sighed again and set the note down on her desk, opening her laptop and turning it on. Once it was booted, she went to the documents window and opened the one clearly marked MUSE PLEASE READ RIGHT NOW, snickering at Lime's unusual document titles.

A few sentances into the description of what was going to happen, every trace of the grin was wiped off her face as quickly as if someone had taken an eraser and rubbed it off.

She could hardly believe what she saw. It had been years, centuries, since she'd seen something like this, back when she'd been working as a muse for original works. It had seemed alright then, but then it had started to grow and spread, like a disease, consuming everything it touched. And then it disappeared without a trace.

Muse didn't want to believe it. She didn't want to see what she was seeing, but she'd read the same description, down to the letter, so many times that she knew beyond doubt that her greatest nightmare had returned.

"Oh, no…" She breathed.

This was bad.

* * *

Drowsiness.

That was all it was aware of at first. It took a while for it to even register that it was awake again, alive and moving. But when the trickle of information finally permeated its dark thoughts, it reared its great black head, shaking off the hundred years of sleep crushing down upon it. So intoxicated was it with the sensation of life that it did something it probably shouldn't have – it rushed for the world that had been opened to it. Settling above the treetops of some forest, it tasted the world it would soon posses.

It was time to find its vessels.

_A/N: DUNDUNDUN!_

_Oh dear, whatever can happen next? I guess you'll just have to wait and find out BWA HA HA HA. _

_Until then… review?_


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